Up to
3,000 demobilized soldiers staged a surprising march today, in the capital
Luanda, towards the presidential palace. They went to claim the dues owed to
them for years of military service, and disability pensions.
Initially,
the group departed from the general headquarters of the Angolan Armed Forces
(FAA), at around 9 AM, and walked almost three kilometers to the gates of the
Ministry of Defense, which is just a few hundred meters from the presidential
palace. With remarkable organizational and tactical skills, the former soldiers
punched through three strongly manned presidential guard and anti-riot police
barriers, and fought off the police batons and the canine brigade with kicks.
At least two protesters were reported as injured by the dogs.
For up to
an hour, a standoff ensued in front of the Ministry of Defense, where the
presidential guard, the anti-riot police, the canine brigade, strongly armed
military police and water cannons had cordoned off the last stretch to the
palace. On the ground, generals and top police commanders personally commanded
the operations, as the protesters grew louder and fearless. in some strategic
areas of the city, the military deployed assault cars as preventive measures
As the
anti-riot police tried to push them back with shields that emit electric shocks
and the water cannons were readying to fire, the former demobilized soldiers
showed defiance by chanting against their former comrade in arms: “Kill us!
Kills us! Kill us!”
They
alternated such a foretelling song with another one the ruling Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) had imposed in primary schools to
indoctrinate children from as young as five years of age. “I will die in
Angola, with the weapons of war in my hands/ A grenade will be my casket/ and
my burial will be in a patrol,” the former soldiers sang along, the majority of
them past 50 years of age.
“We have
halted our march here, because we pity them [the president and the generals].
We can also punch through this barrier, and reach the presidency. We just
wanted to send a message that we are coming if they do not pay us,” said
Domingos Frederico, 52, a disabled veteran, discharged in 1992 without a
pension.
On May 31,
the former government soldiers sent a delegation of 70 members to the National
Assembly to request their intervention in addressing their lack of pensions,
but were sent back the General Headquarters of FAA, where no senior official
was available to see them. Since 1992, most of these soldiers have been
spinning in and out of several military and civilian institutions to address
their concerns, but unsuccessfully. “If the government does not resolve our
problem in the coming weeks, we will intervene during the elections. They will
no longer be able to lie to us or calm us down,” warned António Bernardo. The
war veteran pulled his shirt and pants to show several war scars . He also had
tucked in his pants a folder with several documents, from many military
institutions, on how his claims to receive a pension were being addressed since
1988, which he is yet to see.
To defuse
the tension, the General Chief of Staff of FAA, four-star general Geraldo
Sachipengo Nunda, briefly met with a commission of the protesters, in the
Ministry, while the standoff continued. Then, the military provided a speaker
and a microphone for a member of the commission to convey the message of the
top military commander. The general said the Ministry did not have a safe with
money in hand to pay the protesters, and payments required consultation and
authorization from the government. According to the messenger, the general
asked for a moratorium of a month, for the military to effectively address
their complaints.
To this
message, the protesters replied with jeers. “The generals steal away all of our
money. Angola has so much money from oil, and how come they [government] never
have anything for us?” Retired sergeant Afonso Malembe, 51, questioned. He lost
a limb on a landmine in 1985, and is currently finishing high school at night
to become a teacher.
The demobilized
decided, by their own volition, to retreat in an orderly fashion after their
representative explained to them the outcome of the meeting. “We have turned
the heat on them [the authorities], now we can go home in peace, and if by
Thursday next week, they do not address our concerns, and lie to us again, we
will come back in larger numbers and with greater resolve,” warned Tony Bumba,
47.
In a
remarkable display of arrogance, as the former soldiers peacefully turned their
backs to the anti-riot police blockade and started walking way, the commanding
generals and senior police officers on the ground ordered the special police to
chase away the protesters. This set in motion a melee, with the former soldiers
scrapping stones from the pavements and objects to throw at the police, one of
which could be seen bleeding profusely in the head.
The order
showed how the situation is volatile in the relationship between president Dos
Santos’s regime, which has been in power for nearly 37 years, and the disenfranchised
sectors of society. During the protest, one former soldier, Nascimento Pedro,
58, pointed out that “here we are all 100 percent militants of MPLA, but it is
this very same MPLA that is sucking all the blood out of us. Now it is time to
address this problem.” While he was talking, several of the protesters pulled
out their MPLA membership cards to show that there were no opposition parties
behind the protest. Another group criticized the colleagues who were displaying
the MPLA membership cards as “shameless” for, in their view, the party “has
done nothing for the demobilized soldiers.”
One former
soldier stood his ground while the police advanced and screamed that he lost
his fear when a landmine blew his limb away during the war. “We defended your power, thieves!”
Less than
two months away from the elections, the protests keep mounting, and the
authorities seem to have little capacity to address discontent, except with the
use of force and empty promises.
A botched
protest on May 27, in which former presidential guards were supposed to march
towards the presidential palace to demand pensions, resulted in the kidnapping,
by the authorities, of two organizers. Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule are
still missing to date. The presidency promised to address the concerns of its
former guards, which it had turned into garbage collectors, and then fired them
without compensation.
Since
March 2011, street protests have been focusing on the president, who has been
in power for nearly 33 years and is at the center of the government’s misrule,
corruption, violence and the plunder of the country’s assets by his cronies,
generals and members of his MPLA party.
http://makaangola.org/2012/06/english-demobilized-soldiers-protest-in-the-ministry-of-defense/?lang=en
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